With Halloween happening this week, we asked our social media following for their favourite spooky operas. Here are five that were chosen for their spine-tingling atmosphere:

The Turn of the Screw
Based on the Henry James novella of the same name, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is the classic operatic ghost story. An unnamed Governess moves to a country house to take care of two children, only to discover supernatural goings on, and hints of past abuse. As she gets to know the children better, she becomes increasingly convinced that they are suffering some form of demonic possession. Britten leaves it to us to decide whether or not the ghostly happenings at Bly House are in fact all in the mind of the Governess, as the tension builds to a chilling and tragic final scene.

Don Giovanni
The final day of opera’s lascivious anti-hero begins with a cold-blooded murder and goes downhill from there. The sharp shock of one of opera's most famous overtures plunges the audience into the piece and Don Giovanni's hastening towards damnation, pursued by those he has wronged, until, late in the evening when he is visited by a ghostly dinner guest. It might have some moments of musical beauty (the aria 'Batti batti bel Masetto' for example) but Don Giovanni remains a work bookended by some of Mozart's most dark and dramatic music.

Salome
The passionate Dance of the Seven Veils is the most famous part of Strauss’s Salome. For fans of the macabre, however, it’s the unveiling of the severed head of John the Baptist that steals the show. As the deranged Salome embraces the head and crawls about the stage with it in David McVicar’s Royal Opera production, the blood soaks her dress and skin. Her passionate kissing of the head shocks Herod and his guests so profoundly that the Tetrarch (hardly a figure of virtue himself) orders Salome’s execution. This final scene is harrowing – but also deeply moving, as McVicar encourages us to feel sympathy for this troubled heroine.

Macbeth
With witches and ghosts aplenty, no Halloween opera list would be complete without Macbeth, Verdi’s first Shakespearian opera. Verdi adored Shakespeare’s plays, and his score faithfully reproduces the frenzied emotions of the Bard’s original drama. As ambition transforms Macbeth to a murderous tyrant hell-bent on retaining power, Lady Macbeth, who first stirred his ambition, descends into insanity. With the unexpected appearance of the ghost of Banquo, and a hallucinatory vision conjured up by the Witches of Banquo’s ghostly descendants, this is certainly an opera to send shivers down your spine.

Elektra
King Agamemnon of Mycenae has been murdered by his wife Klytämnestra and her consort, Aegisth. Agamemnon’s daughter Elektra becomes obsessed to the point of insanity with avenging her father’s death. She gets her desire when her brother Orest returns to Mycenae, and Klytämnestra, Aegisth and their followers are killed in one of opera’s most terrifying bloodbaths. But what follows is even more chilling, as the exultant Elektra literally dances herself to death. Strauss’s score depicts every shade of his characters’ tormented emotions, and the grim force of destiny, not least in the monumental ‘Agamemnon’ motif that opens and closes the opera.

What do you think is the scariest opera in the repertory?

Upcoming spooky operas include Laurent Pelly's new production of Robert le diable. Booking is now open.

]]>9Chris Shipmanhttp://www.roh.org.uk/?p=62152014-05-19T15:58:51Z2011-10-18T15:48:36ZWith Halloween just around the corner and Tim Albery's Der fliegende Holländer opening this week, there’s a definite ghostly chill in the air at the moment. We take a look at a selection of supernatural operas…

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni - a work described by Charles Gounod as ‘an unequalled and immortal masterpiece’ and by Hector Berlioz as ‘exceptionally great art’ – features one of the most famous spectres in opera: the Commendatore, who is killed by Don Giovanni in the first scene of the opera. The Commendatore’s daughter Donna Anna and her fiancé Don Ottavio swear vengeance on the murderer, but in the end it is the murdered man himself who exacts retribution. In the penultimate scene, the Commendatore comes to seek out Don Giovanni and to urge him to repent his disgraceful conduct. When Don Giovanni disdainfully refuses, the Commendatore drags him down through flames into Hell.

La sonnambula

Although Bellini’s La sonnambula(which opens at the Royal Opera House in November) isn’t actually about the supernatural, there’s a great deal of talk of ghosts throughout the work: the villagers have mistaken the sleepwalking Amina, in her white nightgown, as a phantom. It's only when everyone sees her in action that they realize who the figure dressed in white wandering the village at night really is.

Macbeth

In Verdi’s first setting of Shakespeare, the murderous Macbeth is haunted twice by his friend Banquo, who he has assassinated following a prophecy by witches that Banquo’s children will be kings. On the first occasion, Banquo appears at a banquet given by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, causing Macbeth to rave in fear, to the consternation of his guests. Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost a second time during his second visit to the witches, who show him a ghostly procession of kings: Banquo and his descendants. Macbeth collapses in terror. At the end of the opera, another of the witches’ prophecies comes true when Macbeth is slain by Macduff.

Les Troyens

Ghosts play a major part in Berlioz’s epic opera, which opens at the Royal Opera House in June. In Part I, the ghost of the Trojan prince Hector warns first the prophetess Cassandre and then the Trojan hero Enée of the destruction of Troy. Hector then orders Enée to travel to Italy and there found the Roman Empire. In Part II, Enée, weary from much travelling, arrives in Carthage and falls in love with the queen of Carthage, Didon. Enée plans to marry her, but the ghosts of Cassandre, Hector, Priam and the Asian prince Chorèbe urge him to continue his journey to Italy. Enée obeys, and Didon commits suicide.

The Queen of Spades

The obsessive gambler Gherman pursues and hounds a mysterious elderly countess who is reputed to know an infallible way to win at cards. She dies when he threatens her with a revolver – however, later than evening, her ghost returns and tells Gherman the secret of the cards. The secret comes at a heavy price. Gherman loses his beloved Liza (who kills herself in despair at his obsession), and goes mad when, during an intense evening of gambling, he draws the card of the Queen of Spades. Believing that the Countess’s ghost is pursuing him, he commits suicide.

Lulu

Alban Berg’s heroine Lulu marries three times: her first husband dies of a heart attack on seeing her with another man, the second commits suicide on hearing that Lulu has been unfaithful, and the third is shot by Lulu. In the final act of the opera, Lulu, who has lost everything and is now a prostitute, receives three mysterious visitors, each of whom bears a strange resemblance, musically and physically, to each of her husbands (they are played by the same singers). The final visitor, who represents the husband that Lulu shot, kills her.

The Turn of the Screw

One of the most famous ghostly operas of all time, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is based on an eerie novella by Henry James, about two children, Flora and Miles, who are haunted by the spirits of their former tutor and governess. Their current governess attempts to protect them – with ultimately tragic consequences. While James maintains a certain level of ambiguity as to whether the children are really haunted or whether the ghosts only exist in the fevered imagination of their current governess, Britten makes it fairly clear that the ghosts do exist and that both children are to some extent possessed by them. The eerie score, for chamber ensemble, includes versions of two nursery rhymes: ‘Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son’ and ‘Lavender’s Blue’, and Britten makes use of the high range in the tenor voice to create a particularly frightening ghost in Peter Quint, Miles’s former tutor.

What are your favourite ghostly operas? Tell us via the comment below...